belong - belonging - belongings

Belongings - so much of life seems consumed by items which we have deemed essential for contentment, amusement or work, yet there is so much anxiety about their disposition: moving them, presenting them - what is the meaning of these objects in our existence? Are we talking about elaborate or extensive holdings? For example, I have as Mr. Springsteen described, "a brand new used car." Recently a peacock in the rural compound where I was staying roosted on and about my new used car and shit on it. To manage my anxiety and take care of myself, I parked the car outside the fence - not without some hesitation; after all, it is a 2000 Toyota Corolla with less than 72,000 miles. So there I am in the high desert in search of where I am to belong, struggling with a creature, who while belonging, shit on my belonging forcing me to move it to a vulnerable place; where does it stop?

How does an inanimate object come to occupy a place where it can so easily move one off center? Yes, one's vehicle can be considered integral to one's life especially when far from home, so let's look at an object far less important, say for example my father's last pocket knife. He has been deemed "addle pated, fraught with dementia, senile - pick any modern expression for having gotten old." As a result of this diagnosis he was moved to a special facility qualified to "care" for Alzheimer's patients, and as a result of these new lodgings he was separated from his pocket knife - an item which occupied a conspicuous place in his previous home, having remained open for years on his night stand. Please don't misunderstand, this object to the poet my father is was no more than a symbol for his altering comprehension of the world around him.

Having come into my possession, this object has become a talisman of similar portent; although our two experiences are vastly different and there is no way that I could begin to imagine what this folding blade represented for my father, it has now come to captivate my imagination for all that knives can represent. Yet it remains an object, a thing - a tool, have I been tricked by my own sentimentality to imbue it with greater importance than what it can accomplish by cutting through something - anything? I do know that I would likely be more disturbed by its loss than i would by the theft of my momentarily vulnerable vehicle. Is that weird? Having thoughts like that, you can begin to imagine how hard it might be for me to find a place to belong, or to find one to belong with.

The word belong is based on Old English gelang [ at hand, together with ]. This sense of together runs counter to the "existentialist" tradition in which I was raised, so the notion of belonging becomes a burr under the saddle of whatever search I make to find that place I "belong." For example, just now my ailing father is alone, the same as he was when he entered this world. I too am alone but under much different circumstances - he contemplating the converging meanings of his existence as it draws nigh, while i sit in a small motel in "Heart of the Rockies" trying to string together ideas which could clarify to myself why I would be drawn to the quarry in Marble, CO - which is no more than a hole in the ground whose sole purpose is to provide a particular stone to the world at large - me in particular. And if this is where I belong, rather than "at hand" for my father, how am I to know?

I do know that what is now my knife was so important to my father that he kept it on his night stand - close to where he went to sleep and to where he woke up. This same blade happens to be a near perfect edge with which to shave the last flakes of stone from key features on my latest carving. Because this art work has taken me a decade to complete, and because if I am to be anything more than a poser stone shaper, I have to be able to cut with the same abandon with which one begins a new piece. For if at anytime work becomes so important that one cannot, as they say "bet the farm" on any one stroke - then what is the point to life. Are we to become captive of either those creations which we have fashioned with such love and affection, or even the freedom of our very existence. If it is not possible to move on down the road and belong to wherever it is that we are going, than we as a species may as well squat where we stand and beg the universe to do for us what we have forgotten how to do for ourselves - breathe deeply and welcome our future...

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